Untitled Sermon (11)

forgiveness

Forgiving In A Hostile Situation

Luke 23:34

All of us know the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. I won’t go into it in detail or spend a lot of time describing the suffering and pain that He bore. But Jesus had been unjustly arrested, brutally beaten, mocked, spat upon and stripped naked, and nailed to a wooden cross. As He hung there, I am amazed at the love and compassion that was shown to those who abused Him so greatly. And now the mission that He had come to accomplish was nearing its completion. The weight of sin for the whole world was now placed squarely upon the shoulders of God’s only Son as he hung upon that cross. I cannot begin to fathom what Jesus suffered that day. He carried my weight of sin that day too, just like for all of you.

I can sense a little of the pain that Jesus felt on that day. I’m not talking about the pain he felt as those great iron nails were tearing through his wrists, breaking bones, severing blood vessels and ripping the flesh as they were hammered into that wooden beam.

I can’t imagine the pain that he felt as his feet were nailed, each one in turn, with a giant iron spike that tore through his instep and exited the bottom of his foot. Surely the pain that he felt was more than I can imagine.

But I sense another kind of pain in Jesus. It was the result of the weight of oppression that he suffered because of the sin that He took upon Himself for you and me. As He hung there, He was mindful of those who stood around the foot of the cross. There were mixed emotions in the crowd. Some, like Mary and John, were sad and confused, not yet fully understanding why this had to happen. Why was this great man, this teacher of teachers, this man who had such love and compassion, this man who they all thought would be the great Messiah of Israel, why was He dying on a cross? What purpose could this serve? But they didn’t understand that this had to happen in order for all the promises and prophesies to be fulfilledthat were written in the old testament.

Others who stood around were shouting for joy, expressing their anger and were a mob whose thirst for vengeance against this “blasphemer” and traitor could only be satisfied by the death of Jesus once and for all. They were driven into frenzy as they watched him suffer for 6 long hours. Still others stood around, uncaring, unconcerned and unmoved by what was happening. These were hardened men; hardened by the many battles that they had fought in, and by the many times that they had been called upon to do their duty. The Roman soldiers, for the most part, didn’t care. They were doing their duty, and when their work was done, they just sat down to gamble over the only possession of Jesus’ that carried any value to them; which was his robe.

And when we continue to examine this pericope, Jesus even through so much agony, the bible tells us Jesus utters seven statements while on that cross…

He tells a thief on the cross next to him that asked Jesus to remember him, and he told him “ Truly I tell You, today you will be with me in paradise”

· Then he tells his mother Mary and the disciple John “Woman, here is your son, Son here is your mother

· Then he shifts his tone and says “My God, My God, Why Have you Forsaken Me”

· He continues to say that “He is Thirsty”

· And that “It is Finished”

· And then he tells God finally that  “Father, into your hands I commend My Spirit”

I wish I had time to dive into each one of those sayings, but what excites me the most is that even while Jesus was hanging on the cross with so much grief and torment, The very first thing he said was “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”

As we look at the first statement, we must look at it in context of the story – the story of God’s love for us and our need for Him. In this story, the cross is the means for our reconciliation with God. The cross is about

· sin

· payment

· forgiveness

It’s also about grace / mercy / love.

As sinners, we are God’s enemies (Rom. 5:10). Yet in this state, God provides a way. In this state, Christ made the payment for our sin. And in this state, we see Jesus do something amazing: he prays. In the depth of pain/anguish/misery – he prays. He didn’t pray for relief / “get me outta here” / “smite my enemies” he prayed for their forgiveness.

And this morning church, if you are going to be like Jesus, you need to learn how to

• Pray For Your Enemies Scholars have debated whom Jesus was praying for: the Romans / the Jews / the world But to enter the debate is to miss the point. The debate doesn’t matter – all were against him. And yet when he was hurting most – when those who abused him were standing before him mocking him – when those closest to him were nowhere to be found – he prayed. He prayed for his enemies

He prayed for his abusers

He prayed for the naysayers

He prayed for the unbelievers

And in doing so, he models his own teachings in Matt 5:43-45

43 "You have heard that it was said, ’Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. (NIV)

Secondly if you are going to be like Jesus, you need

 To Ask That They Be Forgiven Forgive in the Greek means to release and let go In other words, Jesus simply was saying “Father, release them . . .” “Don’t hold this against them.” How could Jesus pray this prayer in this hostile situation?

I often find it difficult to pray for someone when they’ve wronged me until I cool off. I want to hang on to it for a while. It takes a big man to pray for someone in the heat of the battle. Do you ever find yourself hanging on to a wrong? Have you ever said, “I can’t forgive them because …”

Maybe you’ve never said it, but you’ve lived it. Instead of forgiving you find ways to gig them. You look for ways to make sure they’re unhappy / miserable / a little less than you. That’s holding unforgiveness. I believe we can learn from Jesus’ example on how to model forgiveness:

Forgiveness is one of the ultimate tests for true Christian character. The ability for you and I to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply, can be a very difficult thing to do. But yet we see Jesus’ modeling this for us to the extreme as he is hanging on that cross and he still ask people to be forgiven.

But something interesting about this statement that I pondered is who was Jesus referring to when he said “Them”.

Could it have been that he was referring to the people that had just put him on the cross,

Could it be that he was referring to his disciples all of whom said “Jesus we will always roll with you, we would go to the cross with you, we would die with you, but yet when it came time to stand for Jesus, none of them were nowhere to be found (we have people like that in our lives that say they will always be with you, but then when times get hard, they are nowhere to be found.)

But could it have been that Jesus was thinking about Peter when he told him that he would never deny him.

Could he have even been thinking about Judas who had betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver.

Or could it be that Jesus had you and I on his mind, because the reality is that our sin was responsible for putting Jesus on the cross. Romans 5:8 says that Jesus demonstrated his own love towards us that While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

But he said Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

See the blessing of this statement is that Jesus is willing to forgive us even when don’t even realize how deeply we are offending him.

So what does this mean for us today?  There is more than likely someone in your life that you need to forgive.

Maybe it’s a friend that hurt you deeply

Maybe it’s a spouse that did you wrong

Maybe it’s a co-worker

Maybe it’s a relative

Maybe its someone that you use to date that mistreated and hurt you.

Maybe it’s an abuser

Maybe it’s a parent

Maybe it’s a child

Whoever it is, the challenge is are we able to model what Jesus did and say Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

So lastly, if you are going to be like Jesus, you need

•Need To Forgive Your Enemies

I must let you know that forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. Sometimes we get the two confused and we think that in order for you to forgive this person, that I have to be in connection with them, I have to be in communion with them, we have to have our relationship restored, while that might be the goal sometimes and that might be what God’s perfect will is, sometimes reconciliation is just not possible. Specifically in situations where someone may have hurt you and they may have passed on.

So don’t get reconciliation confused with forgiveness. But I need to tell you that forgiveness is not that absence of pain, but it’s the absence of bitterness.

If anyone tells you that you won’t feel the pain or hurt that they did to you in your past, is not telling you the truth. Because the reality is that the things that people have done to you in your past are going to hurt. There is going to be pain and there is going to be suffering, and sometimes those hurts and pains will be with us for the rest of our lives, but the difference with us as Christians is that when we forgive, we are saying yes what you did to me still hurt, but I am no longer going to be bitter towards you. I’m no longer going to hope that something negative happens to you. We have to know that the bitterness will be gone, but the pain will seemingly remain.

But at the end of the day, it may be hard to process it, but in reality, Forgiveness is an act of faith.

You see we have to trust that the God who saw us being mistreated and offended can do a better job, at dealing with someone who has hurt us then we can ever do. We are relinquishing control and we are relinquinshing revenge and we are saying God, I am outing them in your hands and I am going to trust you to handle the person, who has hurt me deeply and this requires faith.

Its amazing that we can activate our faith when we need God to

Heal us

Pay our bills

Work a miracle

Grant us a new job or house

Give us a financial blessing

Our faith is activated, but seemingly when it’s time to activate our faith for forgiveness, all of a sudden our faith runs out of gas.

We have so much up before God and so many prayers and desires and God simply is trying to get us to have faith to forgive and we get amnesia with us and we sometimes wonder why God haven’t worked on our behalf?

Well church I just want to tell a few of you that just maybe the reason that God has not answered your prayers yet is because he is trying to get you to activate your faith and forgive who he has already told you to forgive.

But I have to ask the question for you to ponder, is there anything that someone has done to you, that was greater and more painful than what those people did to Jesus. When they

Nailed him to the cross

Whipped him

Beat him

Spoit on him

Pierced him in the side

And stripped him of his clothes

If Jesus can find it in his heart to forgive after he went through his sufferings, then as believers, we should be like Jesus and forgive as well. Because when we go to our Father for forgiveness, we are quick to want God to forgive us for our sins, so we are also under divine obligation to extend that same level of grace and forgiveness to others.

When He hung on that cross and said those words, “Father, forgive them”, He was talking about me and He was thinking of each of you. I was a debtor because of sin. I owed a debt I could not pay. Jesus paid it for me, so now I’m still a debtor, but I’m a debtor of love. I owe Jesus everything. I owe Him my life, my skills, my talents, my time, my energy and all that I am.

He bought my freedom and that freedom remains as long as I serve Him.

But the moment I serve the devil, even unwittingly, that freedom is gone. I become a debtor once again – a debtor to sin.

Thank God I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, my Lord, my King, my Elder Brother, my Great High Priest, my Savior – is there pleading my case and continually saying it again and again, “Father forgive him. He knows not what he does.” That old sin nature that still is in me might still raise its ugly head from time to time, but the love of God and the forgiveness of God keep me from utterly falling. His love for me never fails and the blood of Jesus just keeps cleansing me again and again.

That same forgive that I know is for all men who will come to Jesus. He died that all men could be forgiven. He died so that no one would ever have to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire.

From the cross Jesus cried, “Father forgive them”.

Have you been forgiven – then forgive!

If you need forgiveness – Jesus says come!

What a wonderful thing it is to know that you have been forgiven by God and are counted as one of His own.